keep bass?

[purpel sock hat 1]

what do you think of keeping a few smaller bass? if have fished 10 years on a lake and have not realy seen a improment of size in the bass. this lake does get fished a lot by a few real good bass fhisherman and i know they are not keeping fish. ps.i do not keep any bass but would it be just good for the lake?

[HellaBass]

I think it is good to keep some small bass to eat, i.e. selective harvest. An acre of water can only hold so many pounds of bass. Would you rather have 50 fish that weigh an average of 1lb or 25 bass that average 2lbs?

I would not keep anything much over 14in unless you hook them deep and they have low chances of surviving.

[Ralph Wiggum]

My folks rent a place in the summer for a week and during that week, we generally keep some bass. I don't see any harm in it and we throw back pretty much anything over 16-17 inches. They taste great and there is plenty of them in the lake.

Like any fish, selective harvest is critical.

[grab the net]

Keeping a few bass is just fine, the smaller fish fry up just dandy, especially early season and late fall. It can be beneficial to some lakes for some to be kept and ate.

[Cabela10]

I haven't kept a bass since I started fishing tournaments. I don't target bass outside of tournaments. I see no problem with keeping the 12-14 inchers in Minnesota and the 14-15 inchers in Wisconsin but anything over those lengths, should be released, and if you catch a monster, photograph it and have a replica mount made while the fish is still swimming in the lake.

[Slyster]

Bass aren't very good eating fish in my opinion. Pike and Walleye are better.. but I don't target them.

[traveler]

I got invited to fill in a spot with a group of guys from Illinois last fall to LOTW. Supposedly a muskie fishing bunch, but turns out they were a bunch of cut and gut boys...never seen so many bass filleted in a week! And of course, they were after the big ones. Limits of large and smallies for 10 guys. I was about sick, and I don't even fish bass. Oh yeah, 3 whole muskies for the group, for the whole week. Needless to say, I won't be a regular on that trip:(

[Captain B.R.K]

I have never tried bass, but heard they are pretty oily?!? I did hear smallies taste a lot like walleyes.

My thought is if you are using selective harvest, you are fine. Just use common sense when you are on the water- take the smaller ones and leave the larger ones for others to catch.

[Ralph Wiggum]

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I have never tried bass, but heard they are pretty oily?!?

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Not at all! At least out of clear lakes, they taste pretty much like a sunfish.

[stmichael]

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Not at all! At least out of clear lakes, they taste pretty much like a sunfish.

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I have found this to be true as well. I do not take bass regularily, but, if the fish after several minutes of trying to revive it, is not going to make it, I will bring it home. Every now and then I will keep a couple 12 inchers, other than that CPR.

[ikeslayer]

Last year while prefishing for the fm tourney on forest lake i was struggling to catch decent fish. After prefishing for the day some friends of mine from Ham lake invited me over for dinner. i went there and we were having fish. They layed down this huge pile of fillets on my plate the bottom fillet being the biggest and about 7 inches tall. i asked what kind of fish they were they replied mostly panfish but there are some 3lb bass in here too those are the big ones. After struggling to catch fish preparing for a tourney i could hardly eat it. i wanted to cry.

ike

[Ralph Wiggum]

I think a lot of people tend to go overboard on the C&R of bass. Sure, I agree that big fish need to be protected with selective harvest, but honestly, bass are a very abundant species in lots of lakes, and harvesting some shouldn't be taboo.

[Ralph Wiggum]

I think a lot of people tend to go overboard on the C&R of bass. Sure, I agree that big fish need to be protected with selective harvest, but honestly, bass are a very abundant species in lots of lakes, and harvesting some shouldn't be taboo.

[ikeslayer]

i know a guy who lives up north and hates bass for the reason of overobundance. He says, " everyone catches and releases bass i am going to throw them on shore like a carp" Well he doesn't but he despises them. Hellabass put it nicely it is the next post. I have often wondered if we should be keeping a few more bass and try to grow some size.

ike

[ikeslayer]

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I think it is good to keep some small bass to eat, i.e. selective harvest. An acre of water can only hold so many pounds of bass. Would you rather have 50 fish that weigh an average of 1lb or 25 bass that average 2lbs?

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nicely said rich

[lookincalifornia]

yup i don't keep any thing but a trout when camping or panfish through the ice. i really need to start selective harvest. with all the bass purists out there, and the ability for bass to survive, they can really become stunted in smaller bodies of water. imagine if walleye anglers religously practiced C&R. a black bass is a sunfish and one should not feel bad eating a largemouth as they would a bluegill

[Daze Off]

Let's throw this into the hopper - fish mortality after C&R - most especially after being in a livewell for a period of time is much higher than previously thought. Aside from those fish who obviously die while in "custody", many of those which swim away seemingly fine actually die within 48 hours according to some recent studies. For that reason there is a lot of discussion now about making all bass tournaments "paper tournaments" where a fish is measured and immediately released and winnings are based upon either total inches or a conversion chart.

So, if they are to die anyway, why not keep some for the table instead of feeding the raccoons and buzzards?

Just some thoughts....I personally don't care for the taste of bass so for me it is not an issue.

Daze Off

[river rat316]

I do think everything should go to a paper tournament, but the weigh ins would suck! Theres gotta be something they can do in this day and age with all the technology to make livewells in tournaments a thing of the past!

[Cabela10]

Daze Off, I've read that report/study you're mentioning. I have fished on lakes a day or two after a tournament was held on it, and I never once noticed a bass kill off afterwards. Yet in the study, they say if you went on the lake a day or 2 after the event, you would see fish floating along the bank all over the place, first hand experience for myself, I have not witnessed anything of the sort. So for me, I do not believe that study. Is it possibly more of a southern thing with the warmer waters year-round?

[Pherris]

I have not seen the study but must agree with Bobby on this one. If it were true the shores of Minnetonka would be littered with dead bass and it would be on all the news stations for days.

[Wayne Ek]

If your a bass-head then you know that the Alexandria area is host to many tournaments, not to mention 2 local tournaments every week during the week for bass and 2 additional tournaments that are mult-species each week, during the week. I've had a lake home up here since the mid-80's and lived here full time since 2000. I'm on the water almost everyday during soft water. Not once have I seen dead bass floating after any of the tournaments, or other species floating after the multi-species tournaments. Now I will see dead fish at times, but it's usually a northern or walleye that is floating. As for keeping bass. Yes, we have to start practicing selective harvest, we are loving the poor fish to death. I have a hard time convincing some of my clients that it's ok to keep fish... any fish at all.

[Cabela10]

Same with Waconia the last couple years, that lake has been pounded by tournament fishermen, yet I've never seen dead bass floating anywhere days afterwards.

[ocf1]

If this report was written down south or west, where the water temps are higher in the summer, that would hurt the fishs' ability to recuperate.

[Cabela10]

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If this report was written down south or west, where the water temps are higher in the summer, that would hurt the fishs' ability to recuperate.

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Maybe.

And maybe it was a DNR funded study to eliminate tournament fishermen by getting recreational guys [PoorWordUsage]ed off at the tournament dudes who kill those so called bass. That seems far-fetched, but I don't trust anybodies agendas anymore when it comes to the DNR.